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Today I was involved in a conversation that dealt with music journalism and the future of it with the new distribution streams that exist. The days of music publications steering me towards the new releases of known acts and the trust of spending my well-earned money on the unknown are pretty much over as a 50 something with a wide scope that has hardened a bit. I was always the guy with the unpopular playlist, willing to jump from an ECM track to Zappa to Zep. I was fortunate enough to have a father who listened to jazz and Indian music as well as the Firesign Theatre. I think I’ve gone over this before here at Bitterman; I’ll try to keep it current and real.

So the main thrust is I was into progressive styles of music as well as some more regressive stuff. Jeff Beck’s Wired record was and is the standout from my mid-70’s period. That lead back to Mahavishnu and forward to the Dixie Dregs and sideways to Little Feat. While my school mates listened to Kiss, Zep and Skynyrd, I skipped Kiss, grooved to the others and tried to share my weird penchant for English bands with side-long opuses. I started out reading mags like Circus and eventually made it to Musician, Spin and the like. I got exposed to some really great music journalists and some hacks too. I might see a review for a band I heard of once but it was more likely that an older kid would turn me on to Yes and Genesis, usually while some mid-hemispheric agricultural combustion was going on. I have to give some credit to the DJ’s of the era in Hartford and New Haven who played regional faves like Utopia, NRBQ, Bonnie Raitt and Tower of Power.

I ended up at music school in Boston where the span got wider. You’d expect that the jazz history would be forthcoming from the staff but there were those in your classes that were more into Judas Priest. Then there was the local scene of Boston in the early 80’s. There was plenty of gigs from the jazzers and the conservatory types but this was the time of the Cars and Till Tuesday, the New Wave. There was this thing called MIDI and all the playing gigs were gonna go away…

Well, not all the gigs. It was a time for silly hair and silly clothes. There usually is a time for each generation to run that course. In the rest of the world there was punk and thrash and NWOBHM, the start of lite jazz. You either didn’t need to know how to play or really needed to know how. Being in the middle wasn’t as safe a spot as you would think.

Throughout those days there was plenty of ways to find music. I spent hours in the bins digging through vinyl. The local and national mags both turned me on to new stuff, as well as the diverse crew of people I went to school with and then run in the clubs with.

Fast forward to 2015. I get into a conversation with a friend on Facebook about an article he posted that talks of music “curation” and some new curve on music journalism. Someone to be picked as the newest Pied Piper for the kids to follow. It rings really false. My friend was calling for a new underground, a movement outside the chemo-riddled establishment that would be beyond the singing competition shows or the bring-me-the-next-Mumford-and-Sons, the “pre co-opted” scene that is only slightly better than the movie industry’s comic book jones.

So, where do I get my leads on new music? Do I get an update on Twitter each hour from Pitchfork? No. I trust very few writers anymore. Anil Prasad from Innerviews digs deep. I used to find things on internet radio before it was co-opted as well. Now could be a tip from Facebook that leads to a Soundcloud file and then buying a recording directly. It seems like a lot of work for new music but the authority is either corrupt or scattered to the wind. Word of mouth… leaps of faith. I still get some rewards.

So where is the curation or the liner notes? There is info that listeners have interest in. Steve Gilmor pointed out years ago that the tablet (OK, the iPad is what he said) was the device that would bring liner notes back. Big pictures, credits, links to videos and other content. Sure, you can’t clean your weed on one but I quit a while back. I can’t understand why these devices and the current state of bandwidth hasn’t seen someone take the next step. I guess it has to be Apple as iTunes is the most co-opted software out there. Deep linking this data could lead to further sales for the distributors from the legal licensing listeners. Our library has been scanned, even the more obscure choices have been uploaded. The call of “nothing good out there” should be changed to “help me get whats good out there”.

People say the younger generation won’t bother paying for any of it. Thieves gonna steal. I do my level best to support the people I listen to. Some artists are getting that additional content to listeners in return for supporting them, items or music lessons or get this, putting their name in the liner notes. Let’s see who moves first.

I guess that one of the things about having a blog is busting yourself. You can share experiences, state opinions and pass the word onward to others. In some cases you can print retractions, apologize and correct yourself. You don’t see it very often but the chance is there.

This Valentine’s Day my wife and I went to the movies and saw “Still Alice”, a drama starring Julianne Moore. It tells the story of a 50-year-old Linguistics professor who finds out she has early onset Alzheimers disease. It starts off with a few missing words and deteriorates to a truly heartbreaking state of which there is no cure for yet. Miss Moore’s performance is spot on (I believe she won the Golden Globe for this role); she goes from an agile public speaker to not being able to say more than a single word.

If you have experienced Alzheimers or dementia within your family or circle of friends you know that it is difficult to handle seeing a vibrant able person slip away into the twilight before their time. My Grandmother had a slow progression which went from lucid moments followed by complete loss of memory as to who her family was. I visited her in the last few years and it was just hard to handle.

I guess this is where the part about busting myself comes in. I have a friend who I used to work with who was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimers. He had come out of a rough patch in his life where he was making changes in his behavior in order to improve his situation. Some of our other co-workers were catty and cruel to him behind his back, calling him “burned out”, “space cadet” and other things. I found it ironic as one of the changes he made was not drinking or using anything. I spent time with him as he tried to get back to a level playing field and like many of us, just trying to keep the next job coming into view. There were tests. There was a possible diagnosis of multiple mini-strokes which had left him slightly altered.

All he wanted was to keep working. As the diagnosis became clear, his main skill, rigging was out of the question. It is too dangerous to have someone who is forgetting things hanging great weights over others heads. He also had worked as a guitar tech and the danger of giving someone an out-of-tune guitar was less life threatening. We kinda lost touch around the time I had my heart issues as I quit my stressful position with the ESB.

I had other friends occasionally mention him, having seen him as they passed through southern California and suggest I write or call. I didn’t. I’d see traces of him on the internet. I didn’t reach out. Finally I got a message from his wife asking for us, his other family, to help financially with his needs or he would probably have to be made a ward of the state. I pledged but didn’t send.

What happens when our friends get cancer, lose the ability to work, have difficult illnesses? Why do some of us just become like people avoiding eye contact with the homeless? Are these people contagious or dangerous to us? Of course not. By averting our gaze we don’t have to see their unfortunately different state. Am I the only one who does this? I must guess no.

I fear that the same thing will happen to me, finding out who my real friends are and those who keep their eyes to the horizon. I don’t know if this is the right forum for this but the movie bugged me enough to want to do this. Perhaps in the future I’ll be more of a friend to others, giving what I can and not making the broken ones invisible as well. I pledge to be better about this as my generation wanders into the bonus round and things like this become more likely.

And to my friend? I cherished our friendship. From the days at Danker and Donahue with your bike or the band’s van to the biggest stadium tour I ever did, you were someone who I counted on, hoped that you saw me as a worthy co-worker. Later in our time together you reached back to me and I was glad to be there. I hope you know peace. I hope you still know love.

Hook- a catchy musical phrase which forms the basis of a popular song.

Most often when discussing the term “hook” in music it is to a catchy melodic part you remember. It might be a favorite song or those tapeworm-like parasites that won’t leave you under threat of death. As I continue to explore the genre of progressive metal/dent/ambidjent, the concept of a rhythmic hook is forefront.

Two reasons for this; as a drummer, rhythmic hooks have been how I identify my favorite parts and players. The other is that the technical, detuned, heavy style of the genre depends on drones and simple octave patterns that lock rhythmically with the drums. Why is it so simple? Mainly because it sounds so heavy; but the style depends on a locked groove that communicates to the listener on a primitive level.

Groove- a pronounced, enjoyable rhythm.
Drums have been used for communication,worship,celebration, meditation and warfare. The open groove will cause a group to move in unison, clap, cheer. It’s a heartbeat, a dance step , a call to arms. Even in these times of touchscreens and Twitter, the drum beat effects even the most stoic among us. What does this have to do with this rather small segment of the music making and listening public?

Almost all music is based on repetition. In rhythm, melody, lyric and form, you can recognize a part after it repeats a few times. Those catchy summer sing-a-longs would not be without it. A groove is extremely important in certain kinds of music, like funk and dance. Heavier music like metal, over its history, not so much. Yet a player like John Bonham of Led Zeppelin or John Stanier of Helmet groove like crazy. How can a genre both have or have not a groove? To me it is a matter of intent and syncopation on behalf of the drummer and the rest of the band. Head banging is a kind of groove but a real groove is deeper, pelvic, snake necking, sexual. For a form of music based on riffs, a groove should be a no brainier.

Scientifically: pulse (signal processing), a rapid and transient change from a baseline
In physiology, a pulse is the throbbing of arteries as an effect of heartbeat
In physics, a pulse (physics) is a single and abrupt emission of particles or radiation
In music. a pulse (music) is a rhythmic succession of sounds

Jazz and progressive music can lack pulse and groove but also include it, if that’s the intent. These are words musicians love to argue about, like “swing” and “groove”. In interviews Matt Halpern of Periphery discusses groove and pulse almost preliminarily , as he appears to have studied those who have come before very thoroughly. He also has another project called Bandhappy, an online education site that has student musicians able to study with their musical heroes. In this day of diversifying income for musicians, heres a way to augment their living even while on the road. I would have eaten this up as a youngster and in fact might pursue it as an old fart, as these guys came to play…

Ok, wandered off into a PSA…

This kind of music is busy and heavy, with necessary ebbs and flows along the way. The rhythmic busyness almost demands harmonic simplicity, as there has to be some form of space as relief and release for the rhythmic intensity. The drums and guitars lock into a pattern, propelling the sound forward, octaves leaps synced with the kick drums, the movement in the feet, the pulse in the chest, the complexity not in harmonic movement but rhythmic. Being a progressive form, this is the starting point. It comes in many favors from the gloss of Periphery to the grit of the more growly bands.

The influence of Meshuggah is pretty strong in many bands, which can be a good thing. The focus on rhythmic complexity does not eliminate harmonic risk, as the 7 and 8 string guitars detuned offer this palette of notes that certainly exist now, menacing, microtonal bending and the wonderful tendency of the low strings to strike sharp before they settle into pitch. This is a different complexity, driven by the instruments nature, the delight for the player as intense for the listener. Chugging against the low open string, the one key center strangely reminding me of African vocal groups who only perform in one key.

As polyrhythmic and odd time as this music can be, some of these drummers really make the effort for the pulse to play through. There are those that no matter how complex the pattern is approach it as 4/4, making the pulse job one with the accents a close second. As much as I am describing this music in traditional terms there is a different kind of composition here, born of the nature of the instrument. As David Byrne stated in an amazing TED talk, the change in venues changed the music written. I suggest that for some, the 7 & 8 string guitar and computer recording & amp modeling technology has effected the way the music has evolved. Now as these acts move from the bedroom to practice rooms to clubs to arenas, it’s going to change even more.

There are moments of traditional song form and counterpoint but this style draws the writer back to that open string again and again, leaping and poking between the drums, a linear attack that pushes forward. As with most heavy music, the need for release brings quieter pulse free sections and this is one of the places where the ambient properties shine through. Projects like Cloudkicker and Chimp Spanner create atmospheres that are rather cinematic. In fact much of the visual elements for these bands are futuristic, off world graphics and the melding of computer filters and clearly non-acoustic percussive elements make me feel that part of the Blade Runner future is already here. With due respect, I have to point to David Torn and his deconstructive computer mayhem of his guitar years ago with Splattercell.

There is a vocal blast and release nature in this as well, the screams giving way to “clean” vocals. The problem with some of these bands is they end up sounding like Linkin Park. As I have stated in earlier posts, I am content with the instrumental tracks when a band is doing something interesting musically. Thanks to recording technology and Internet distribution, a band can offer a vocal free version of their album much easier than ever before. The genesis of these bands from instrumental demos on forums to finished album tracks is often followed by fans, a relatively new phenomenon for the end user. As these bands get signed/ distributed for the first time, the listener has already heard the raw riffs and now gets to see the final product, for better or worse,

I lean toward the more ambient offerings, either instrumental or the ones who howl less.

Last week I was truly fortunate to see Tesseract and Animals as Leaders, who are in heavy rotation on my iPod. They clearly can play their instruments and the intricate parts of their albums were clear and concise, maybe too much so. These are performances, the effort put into execution. I look forward to seeing one of these bands improvise a bit, as AAL hinted at.

Recently I began to really appreciate Uneven Structure, a French band who isn’t afraid to slow tempos and sing in a normal register. Yeah, I know, I’m behind the curve. They are seen as being part of a Djent “Big 4″ by some. I feel that, along with Tesseract, they stand apart vocally with better range and dynamics. The groove is there and melodically the ideas are more fleshed out than other bands. Another band, Monuments, (who are also from Milton Keynes like Tesseract) released an instrumental version of a song from their not yet released album Gnosis which shows the layering of groove, harmony and advancing composition quite clearly.

Add to that the release this week of Vildhjarta’s first… This is a strong scene.

I have been fortunate to work with some pretty serious people over the years who are groove-by-trade types and the idea of heavy music that swings or grooves first has found its time. The rule rather than the exception; I can deal with that. Heres to another generation of players, not poseurs.

It doesn’t seem right to have the purchase of a new device be the reason for me to return to a long form blog post here on PIBC. I’d hoped it would be a return to art, music or poetry; still, an opportunity to share my thoughts about this needs to go beyond the restraints of micro blogging and, though long dormant, I still pay for this space.

Right before Christmas, my long suffering Blackberry Pearl 8120 went on a trip around the inside of an HE washer. Saturated and well spun, it took a few days for the moisture and confusion to begin departing the chassis. Like an elderly man, it recognized the media card, then didn’t, then did. It froze like a potted plant in Calgary. When it began to work again it would reboot in the middle of calls, the middle of words.

I spent more than a few years traveling the world with the spartan operating system, yanking out the battery on crashes and freezes, using other peoples workarounds in order to attempt to be real time with those on laptops and other devices. I can’t begin to tell you how amazed I was with the Blackberry push technology, the speed and reliability it had for email. I once found myself within a Roman Coliseum in Pula, Croatia in 2007, sending an email from my laptop and hearing the whoosh of the Apple Mail notification followed in one second by the vibration of my Blackberry. Think about the routing for a second; My laptop to the production office wifi to the local Croatian telco to the internet to Google in the states to Blackberry in Canada to Tmo to the cell provider in Pula to my Pearl in about one second. That’s insane.

The sad part began as the real time revolution began, some of us using Google Talk to follow our Twitter stream through a mysterious and legendary myth called “Track“. This would be May 2008 and I stood in Dublin, Ireland at the RDS Arena, an equestrian center used for concerts for many years. I put a few keywords into Track that day and watched in amazement as realtime tweets came out of the 20,000 people in front of me and into my phone. In experimenting with certain keywords in certain newscycles, I was able to crash my phone in some spectacular ways.

Well, now Track is just a story early adopters tell their grandchildren when they want them to fall asleep but it was a clear sign to me of how underpowered handheld devices were for the oncoming data stream. The Blackberry became clearly web challenged as the first iterations of the iPhone showed that the phone was (clearly) the least of its features. I, like many felt attached to the microscopic keyboard, the ability to have multiple conversations going on, IM, Text, Email, photos going out and coming in. I got to a point when I knew a crash was coming, a flash site locking the hourglass in an endless topple, the battery removal and reinsertion just another keystroke, doing it all without looking, the reboot period just a commercial break of sorts.

As contrarian as I was about the iPhone not being what I needed or wanted and ATT being what it is, I bought an iPod Touch last year for a two fold reason. First, I was going to use it as a Skype phone around the Pacific Rim (I did and it was quite able) and also so that I wouldn’t be totally ignorant of the OS experience. It’s a great media player, logical, small and reliable. The App aspect was slow to become as important but it was rather remarkable to have the mobile experience of getting the software you need when you needed it.

Oddly, I ended up using the Blackberry on my Pacific trip for 2 things and one was remarkable and the other, expensive. The Wifi/UMA section of the Pearl made it possible to turn off the cell broadcast antenna, hit free wifi on the streets in Australia and Japan and make all the free international calls I wanted. Find a McDonalds, stand outside, join the hotspot, wait for the red UMA indicator and dial away. The other was the casual data access I made in Australia over the cell system, which for YEARS in Europe never got metered or billed and created a wallet breaking roaming charge I’d never incurred before. Expensive lesson.

So here I am a week into my Android experience, comparing it to my BB experience (the Jensen Interceptor of the internet, minus the speed) and to my Apple knowledge (not a deity, not a demon, just a really well crafted only show in town). In my industry, we deal with multiple operating systems from many vendors. We have some standards like MIDI and some formats that became prevalent so that the competition would include it just in order to be used. The real parallel is to the digital rack gear of the 80’s and 90’s, when companies like Roland, Yamaha, Korg and Lexicon had very clear ideas of how you were to navigate through the endless pages of parameters with a 2 line LED screen and a scroll wheel and “enter” button.

It wasn’t unusual to work for people who stayed with one kind of gear because trying to figure out the OS was just such a waste of time. The use of the Atari ST computer along with the early Macs began to bring a more uniform GUI experience to musical gear. As music software for sequencing, programming and recording evolved, the Mac desktop became the palette that many techs and musicians became comfortable with (to be fair, some of the best keyboard techs I know were multi-platform and did a great deal of work on Windows, due to the huge market share they held in those days).

I mention this because there were moments back then when you had a moment of “oh, so THAT was what the programmer was thinking when he did it this way” when you went from a Yamaha piece to a Roland piece. I’ve had a few of those with the Nexus One and the Android platform.

There were early moments when the lack of uniformity and shortcuts built into the desktop, the browser and a few of the apps began to sour me from the N1 as I compared it to the soft key dance of the iPhone/iPod.

“Why move the clutch and the brake? I’ve always driven this way…”

In Formula One auto racing, the controlling of gear shifts have gone from the old school 3 pedal manual H pattern experience, to semi-automatic, sequential shifting to hand controller, computer clutching gear selection. The steering wheels on these cars are more like high end game controllers…

A back button that can get you out of any path a step at a time is not a bad thing. You want to bail out, the home window button is always there. Having a dedicated menu button work on all areas is helpful and educational too. The trackball, though I’ve been using them for 20 years, is a little bit lost on this device but provides a 3D message indicator to see across the room.

I was really bugged by some of Google’s lack of widgets for the services I use. Then I realized that they use the browser as the engine for many things. Bookmark the mobile version of Google Reader for instance, put a shortcut on the desktop and you’re golden. No memory for a widget, nothing to load. It already lives on the cloud.

Google Voice has been mentioned as being the big draw here and I will not be a detractor. Being able to funnel your voicemail, texts and numbers into the Google eco-system for someone who travels as much as I do is a big winner. I’ve gone weeks without checking my voicemail overseas because I was afraid I’d lose my house for roaming charges. It’s a non-issue now as long as I have an internet connection at work or the hotel. Also in the very loud environment I exist in, seeing Google’s best guess at the transcription of the voicemail is very handy; you could put my phone through a Marshall amp an I’d still not get the message. Now I can…and the spamku errors of the lightly grayed guesses are very entertaining.

It’s interesting to see how Google’s apps differ from Loic’s or Amazons, let alone the developers who are giving it their best shot. There are those that are missing entirely at this point, Buddyfeed,Kindle, Tweetie and the like. With an increased user pool, developers will make it happen and Google will tweak more sugar in and out of their pastry named systems.

A few apps have been crashy like Ustream but for a person who carried a Crashberry for many years, it’s unreal to have gone a week without pulling the battery… though I could if I wanted to or needed to. I can also carry a second one for heavy data flow days…sorry.

I am a little disappointed that no accessories were ready when they released it; skins, spare batteries, chargers, cradles, etc.

I am enjoying having a high powered mobile device that does nearly everything I need it to. I’m about to give it a partial test by leaving the country and shifting to primarily wifi for a few weeks. I’ll let you know how that goes.

I was watching an interview today between Charlie Rose and Michael Arrington from TechCrunch and the topic of the expansion of the mobile web in the United States was discussed. I have linked to many news articles about the ongoing spectrum auction for nearly a year now as it has a direct impact on me at work. How could surfing on the web on your iPhone effect a guy who changes strings for a living? You would be surprised at how the explosion of cell usage and mobile bandwidth can effect my day.

When you see a band onstage you take for granted that you will hear what comes out of their instruments, as long as it’s working properly or they are actually playing it. The band often runs around, from one end of the stage to the other, interacting with the crowd, playing to the left, to the right, to the back. Compared to the early rock days when performers were lashed to their amps and standing still in the front of microphones, the freedom of wireless mics and transmitters gives both the musician and the audience a closer and more animated experience. In the past 15 years as well, the performers have been able to improve their experience by using wireless ear monitors, which usually have custom fitted ear molds that provide them with a mix of what they need to hear in order to play, be in pitch and interact with the others onstage. In my case, I use wireless ear monitors to be able to hear what is going on for my clients as far as function, quality and tuning while being able to continue to work in the shadows to be ready for the next tune.

Tours become more high tech and elaborate every year. We often end up being the R&D department for certain tech as we use it in real time, real world conditions, indoor and out, hot, cold, dry, rainy, 110 volts, 220 volts, 60 cycles, 50 cycles… we pack it, move it, drop it, pick it up and see if it works. As reliability is a must, things that fail have a very short life with the road crew with very few exceptions.

At the start, a lead singer might have had a wireless mic so he or she could croon to the audience. Then the guitar player really wanted to pose out in front of the PA speakers (or not trip over his cable after a few adult beverages). The wireless manufacturers began to use different frequency ranges to improve sound quality and reliability as different parts of the spectrum are regulated for certain use. You might remember the scene from “Spinal Tap” when Nigel’s guitar begins to pick up the control tower when they play at the military base. TV, radio, police communications, taxis, CB’s, walkie talkies, cell phones, wifi, cordless telephones and radio controlled toys all have specific frequencies that they are supposed to operate in, which are regulated by the government. It is different in each country; in the US it is overseen by the Federal Communications Commission.

With the audio wireless equipment that has been available for 10 or 15 years, manufacturers would use a range of about 20 mHz for a series, giving the user a very wide selection of frequencies to choose from, especially as they travelled they could be “frequency agile” and adapt to different wireless traffic in each city. That way Nigel would never pick up the control tower as long as his roadie wasn’t asleep at the wheel. It also allowed sound companies and bands to use more wireless, placing channels in groups so they wouldn’t interfere with each other.

It was not unusual on a large tour to use 50 or 60 channels of wireless onstage for mics, back ups, all manner of instruments, ear monitors for players, dancers (and even management!!!) and the band and sound techs as well. In certain places this required a lot of thought and channel changing when the radio traffic was high. Some tours actually employed a specific person as a “wireless cop” to scan each building, determine clean frequencies, interface with the local government and building people and assign specific channels to make it all work.

With the advent of digital television, the FCC began licencing broadcasters to send TV signals in the UHF range in this new format. Being that the resolution of both the video and audio is much higher, it uses more bandwidth as it is “broadband”. In fact it uses 6 mHz of space, which is over 5 times more than a typical channel. I began to see segments of the musical wireless space become very crowded over 5 years ago, especially in larger markets like Chicago and LA.

OK, plenty of technical stuff here but bare with me.

In 2003, I had a situation where we played multiple shows at Giants Stadium. Between the 3rd and 4th show the channels where I had the bass guitar assigned became unusable. I was put in touch with the person who handles wireless for the stadium and be tried to get to the bottom of the transmission that was interfering with the bass. I found out then the level of traffic was much higher than I ever imagined. Giants Stadium uses nearly 500 different channels of radio during an music or sports event. For security, vendors, maintenance, all levels of their infrastructure had communications. They had assignments for TV, the NFL officials, even the radio stations broadcasting from the tail gate parties in the parking lot were on their list. When they are doing a national TV broadcast for a football game, they don’t want errors. Factoring in our onstage and offstage communications, the total was closer to 560 total channels of wireless.

The stadium rep found out through the FCC that a person had been assigned a temporary license to broadcast digital television in the neighboring town for 30 days in the exact same range, beginning on our day off. What a difference a day makes. The clout of the stadium and of the performer meant nothing to the FCC as the other guy had paid for a broadcast licence. We don’t actually pay for a licence in the US; audio wireless is considered licenced but secondary to DTV.

I had more units on order in a different frequency range that luckily arrived that day and I used them instead. I had ordered them because each city was getting harder and harder to find open airspace. The manufacturers were already building 2 new frequency ranges because they knew the problem was coming and the $30,000 worth of gear we had bought was going to be unusable someday soon.

That day might be this year… anytime between now and 2/19/09.

(If you want to see how the airspace is divvied up currently, look at this chart which is in a previous post with a link to a larger res PDF…)

A majority of the wireless gear we use operates in the 700 mHz frequency range, either totally or partially. We use different ranges from different vendors. As of Feb. 19, 2009, when analog television broadcast stops in the US, all bets are off.

The frequency auction you may or may not have heard about is referred to as “Auction 73″. Part of the spectrum reallocation will go to public safety. The US government is selling the rights to part of this area of the airwaves to the highest bidder and expect to generate 10 billion dollars in license fees. That will cover about 5 weeks of costs in Iraq, by the way. The telecoms and Internet companies want this spectrum to expand the abilities of mobile communication as the need/want for broadband mobile begins to grow.

The audio wireless mic business does not have quite the clout as the telecoms and internet companies but have banded together to try to save a little bit of space for entertainment and other audio uses (conferences, trade shows, churches, sporting events, anywhere you would use a wireless mic) in what the government refers to as the “White Spaces.” Here is a paragraph from the Shure page I have linked about the government’s intent:

…the FCC is also studying the possibility of allowing unlicensed devices to use future “unoccupied” TV channels, which policymakers now refer to as the “white spaces“. These unlicensed devices fall into two categories – fixed and portable – and include such items as wireless broadband services, wireless multimedia systems, PDAs, and cordless telephones. Currently, these products operate in other radio frequency bands, such as 2.4 GHz. The FCC’s proposed date for allowing unlicensed devices to operate in the new core TV band is February 17, 2009, in conjunction with completion of the DTV transition.

Here is a brief summary of how the FCC plans to implement Digital Television service:

The FCC has established a “transition period” which will last through February 19, 2009. During this time, existing TV stations will be assigned a second TV channel on which they will begin broadcasting in the new digital format. This means that some television channels that are now vacant may be filled. Wireless microphones operating on these TV channels may or may not encounter interference from the DTV station’s signal.

During the transition period, public safety agencies will begin to use TV channels 63 – 64 (764 – 776 MHz) and 68 – 69 (794 – 806 MHz) for two-way radio communications. As these frequencies gradually become busier, wireless microphones operating on these TV channels may encounter occasional interference.

After February 19, 2009, TV channels 60 – 62 (746 – 764 MHz) and 65 – 67 (776 – 794 MHz) will be opened up for use by new commercial wireless services. Licenses for these new services will be awarded by competitive bidding. Some of these auctions have already occurred, but the winners will not be able to use this spectrum until it has been vacated by the television broadcasts.

So our gear has a lifespan due to commerce and government regulation… not very rock and roll.
We already have seen how things not in the frequency range effect us, either through harmonic or sheer numbers of transmitters. Ask around the music communities and see if you don’t hear the stories of how 55,000 raise their cellphones at once to let everyone at home hear the start of the show and the wireless mics take a “drop” or a “hit”. GSM phones and the ever-checking-the-cloud Blackberry sound great when musicians leave them in their pockets and come through a guitar amp on 11. Recently I’ve been hearing that the iPhone will cause total “drops” on wireless and some tours won’t let them be turned on around the stage during the show. There are so many wifi repeaters, cell phones, PDA’s and smartphones, EVDO cards that when something happens we don’t have a clear answer as to what caused the problem. In speaking to some of the most experienced people in the field, they don’t always have an answer to the whys… “it’s all voodoo,” one said. The companies have stopped supporting the older, soon to be obsolete audio wireless gear not only to get us to buy the new stuff but so that they are not spending resources on anything that will be worthless or problematic soon.

Hey, we’ll always find a workaround for those who need to “be free”. Audiophiles have found their way back to guitar cords and though the idea of bluetooth guitar wireless is something that just gives me the night sweats, some guy is pondering how to solve the problem. As someone who is connected to my Blackberry all the time and wishing that the browsing speeds were better, I’m not totally against them getting the space to use. I just hope they keep a little area for us to keep on rockin’ in.

Again, with the advent of Twitter and my decreasing ability to say anything of interest, my blog posts are few. But tonight, I’m gonna try to make up for it with photos (done), a list (done) and a ketchup post (this right here). We now have a handful of shows under our belt; the band’s record has been released to critical acclaim and high chart entry and we might actually be getting a clue how to get this 9 truck circus in and out of a building in the same 24 hour period without killing ourselves or each other.

In a lot of ways returning to this band is familiar and comfortable. You know what you’re dealing with. The twist is how little we all know from moment to moment where we are going during the show. Most bands create a setlist which lets the players know which song is next, the techs know which guitar is next and the the sound and light and video people where to be at the start of the song. Creating one with proper flow and pacing is a work of art; one that can be executed by the band and crew is a technical solution.

Maybe you are aware of the term “audible”. It’s what quarterbacks do when they see a mismatch in the defense in football and either want to take advantage of it or avoid a mess. In the music performance business, it’s when the artist decides to leave the set list and play a different song… maybe more than one. Bands like the Grateful Dead, NRBQ and Bruce Hornsby never had a set list. They just figured it out as they go along. With larger productions the idea of an audible is difficult with video elements, the stage or set pieces moving, costume changes and instrument changes. Most of the large “dance” based shows just won’t stray from the list as it can lead to serious trainwrecks.

The folks I’m working for now are all about audibles. We start with a well thought out set list with a strong 4 song start, a slot for a different song to be added each night, some regulars that happen around the same time and a 3 pack leading into the end of the main set. But our guy is really sensitive to the audience and what they need. Sometimes they need another old favorite before they get to a new song that is not as well known. Sometimes a down tempo song needs to be skipped to keep the flow going. And the scariest of all; someone in the audience with a California King bedsheet that has an obscure song that you’re not really ready for scrawled on it in blood, chocolate or Sharpie.

In the past we’ve seen it all; the first song changed as the band walks onstage; a song called that the band has not played in 25 years; opening the show with a song that the band learned 3 hours before to be performed for the first time in front of 55,000 people. It certainly creates an energy unlike the shows that have the same setlist after a year. It forces the band and the crew to create a different system in order to be ready for anything.

As this is not the first time around with this style of show, the crew has different ways of reaching the goal. KB has a pretty amazing system to be ready for his guy which involves multiple guitars pretuned for most songs, spares for spares and a tremendous amount of documentation. We really have to have all our stuff “live”(the sound on, tuned, ready to go) as we often only have seconds to get the right instrument to the players and have the proper switches flipped. One of our guys has to have at least 2 dozen guitars ready to go and only two wireless channels to work with. That requires turning off the old one and turning on the new one as you are handing them off… it’s quite a dance!

One of the nice parts of being back is working with friends. We have seen each other at our best and worst and can call upon each other when things get crazy. We have a pretty intense workday in all departments but the schedule is pretty reasonable now that we are out of the initial promo/tour start period. We’ve lost a few of our old standby people on this crew due to schedule conflicts and sadly, one being no longer with us. We’ve brought in new people who add to the mix. Others have already gone home. Just like the set list, the crew finds a flow, cuts down its load in and load out times and learns its parts.

I’m excited by being back on this crew where you have to bring your game up a notch and you still have a say in how you need to do it. There are some world class people out here and I’m honored to be among them.